Zashiversk Church, father Alexey Sleptsov, was an exile, son of former governor of Moscow Ivan Sleptsov. In 1735 was allowed to preach on condition that he will not ever leave Zashiversk. He died in 1783 at the age of 74 and his duties were assumed by his son Mikhail who lived past the age of 87. Prosperity Zashiversk grew as a marketplace settlement, and its annual fair attracted traders from all over the Far East. In 1786 its organic growth was boosted by establishment of uezd administration; influx of government bureaucrats and their servants temporarily made it a proper town with a city hall, prison, police force of thirty cossacks and a tavern. Population reached five hundreds, including 64 military and 8 clergymen. This prosperity was recorded in detail by explorers Gavril Sarychev and Joseph Billings who also noted hospitality of local ispravnik Ivan Banner, an ethnic Dane in Russian service. Banner, apart from daily police functions, actively recruited the Chukchi into accepting Russian citizenship and jealously tracked the activities of foreign traders in the area. He later joined the staff of the Russian American Company. Coat of arms of Zashiversk was approved in October 1790 along with other coats of arms of the Irkutsk Governorate. According to the blazon, the golden fox in a black field symbolized hunting foxes as the source of subsistence for the population. Overhunting during the 18th century depleted wildlife; decrease in fur trading spelled the town's end. In 1803, when Zashiversk lost its former economic significance as a marketplace, the uezd was abolished, and all government functions relocated to Verkhoyansk. Decline Arctic explorer Ferdinand von Wrangel, who crossed Siberia in the summer of 1820 and reached Zashiversk in October, noted that although after the 1786 the settlement expanded to around thirty permanent houses (as opposed to earlier yurtas), after the merger of Verkhoyansk and Zashiversk uezds the latter "plunged into its former misery". By 1820 the town shrunk to only five houses; there were two Russian families, a Yakut postmaster, Orthodox missionary father Mikhail and his brother. Wrangel was surprised to find local church well-maintained although father Mikhail was 87 years old. He preached in the Arctic for sixty years, converted around 15 thousand natives, and was still able to cross his enormous parish on horseback and hunt wild game in the mountains. Mikhail was the only local able to grow cabbage and root